Hero Series: Arthur Lee Goodin
It seemed fitting to write the first of our new series on July 3rd, the day before that ‘infamous document’ was signed by the English traitors, those good and honorable men that signed the Declaration of Independence. Those men were most certainly heroes. Without them, who knows where we would have been, indeed where the world would have been. I’m writing about American Heroes. Not the kind that are in the History Books, but the kind that have engrained their brand of Americanism, Patriotism, and Service in our hearts and minds. We will be talking about these heroes through the next 6 months or so, featuring your dads, sons, moms, daughters, aunts and uncles, and friends. We are asking you to send us their names, and why they are truly a Hero. I can’t promise that we will cover everyone in the Magazine, but I can tell you that these are the people who will make you proud to be an American.
I get to start this series with my own personal hero, my Dad, Arthur Lee Goodin. Of course, every girl’s hero is her father, but I tend to think mine was something really special. And it’s not just me, my brothers also wrote stories in school about the ‘person I admire most’—but trust me, he didn’t let it go to his head, just his heart.
My Dad was the co-pilot in WWII of a B-24 Liberator in the European Theatre named Bomb Totin’ Mama. He was shot down over Hamburg Germany on April 9, 1944. He was the second to last to parachute out of the plane. He had to dive through the belly of the plane that was filled with gasoline that had caught fire. One of the bombardier doors was stuck in the bottom of the plane that he had to go through. If he chose the wrong side, he would have died. The pilots didn’t know which side was indeed stuck, so Daddy said he prayed, and then felt God’s hand on his left shoulder. He jumped to the left and lived. God was always close to my Daddy. After an experience like that and the ensuing 13 months in a German POW camp, God had to be close.
After landing, and making a short-lived run for it, the Germans took my Dad to a solitary confinement cell in Hamburg. His crew lost three men that day: the Navigator, Turret Gunner, and Tail Gunner. The rest of the crew was also captured and sent to Barth, Germany on the Baltic Sea. My Dad told us that they questioned all of the men, who only gave their rank and serial number. Eventually, the German questioning him got tired of asking him for information and proceeded to tell my Dad the answers to everything that he had asked, where my father lived, his birthday, who his parents were, the grocery store where he carried out groceries as a part-time job and all about Charleston, MO, where he grew up. The Germans really had infiltrated our Country well. Daddy said they did get something minute wrong, but it amazed him that they had such a depth of knowledge.
Thirteen months in a POW camp can change someone, but it never defeated my Dad. They watched people being killed, he lost 85 pounds, and they survived. The Americans found the order to liquidate the entire POW camp in their German Commandant’s desk drawer, but he disobeyed that order. There was a camaraderie between the men who flew planes, Luftwafa or Air Force, they shared a common bond despite the war. He did not follow the orders that would have sent his fellow airmen to death. The men of Stalag Luft 1 lived, including my Dad. The German people, given a chance, were good people. On the other hand, Daddy’s camp was close to a Jewish camp. When the Russians freed both camps, they brought the Jewish people over to try and let their doctors save them. They looked like skin stretched over bones. The Germans who were over the Jewish people threw bread to the prisoners as they left. Some killed each other to get it, but those that got it died, the bread had been poisoned. Daddy said the most beautiful sight he had ever seen was the Russians as they pulled down their camp’s barbed-wire fence.
When Daddy came home, he met my Momma. They fell in love and three months later were married. Daddy farmed the family land, worked at the Post Office as a carrier, and occasionally at the grocery store where he had worked as a kid, in the off-season. In 1954, he ran for County Clerk and won. In the ’50s, they didn’t have voter registration, and he ran against the machine. His opponent ran the machine, and the elections. The ‘machine’ was a group of men who took ‘voters’ from one precinct to the next until they had voted the ticket in all of the precincts. Daddy did a huge job of getting the real voters out! He worked really hard to get voter registration in the State of Missouri and succeeded. He was County Clerk for 28 years and was the only clerk in the state to receive Audits with less than 4 mistakes in them. In Missouri, the Clerk’s office was in charge of the elections, along with the county budget, fishing and hunting licenses, and the driver’s license office. He had a busy office. But I remember him pricing picture frames for the courthouse. He got all of his bids, then put the pencil to it and figured out that if he made them, it would save the County $4 per frame. He did just that because he believed in doing the best job he could do for our County. After all, it wasn’t his money, he was just the steward of the taxpayer’s money.
He was unfailingly kind to people; he helped kids that were in trouble. I can remember him laughing about Judge Craig shaking his head at him and telling him that ‘if someone came back to his court again, he was going to send him home with Daddy.’ He said he wouldn’t, but I know Daddy put some of those kids to work on the farm just to keep them out of trouble. He wasn’t in church every Sunday, sometimes the ‘ox was in the mire’ and he had to work on our farm, but God always came first. He showed his love for God in so many ways, he never turned anyone away, if they needed help, he was there. I can remember a really bad storm that was coming. Daddy stood outside with his hand raised, praying, ‘Father, let this storm pass us.’ A tornado was in that storm, our home nor our crops were touched. It bounced around our neighbors but didn’t touch our home. At 6, that impression was indelibly engraved in my memory.
Daddy believed in our Country, he believed in the people who live here. He was always right, until, once, I actually won an argument with him. We loved to debate - my mom hated that. But I could debate with the best of them. Daddy was so patient, he never raised his voice. Although I knew when that certain tone that he had occasionally crept in, I had to be GOOD! He was my mentor, and it was my life’s work to make him proud. He was my Daddy and I will never forget sitting in his lap—once even when I was older and I needed his shoulder to cry on. His arms were always open. Nothing ever felt so good as being inside that hug, it was safety, it was love, it was ‘everything is all right’ even if the world was falling apart. He taught my brothers and I to do the right thing, even if it didn’t turn out the best for us, in the long run, it would. The right thing was often the road less traveled, and if someone did something to you, that’s ok, God would take care of it. He was that kind of man.
His chosen occupation was farming. He loved the land, the constant struggle, and watching the crops and cattle grow. He kept a journal that detailed everything he did, how the land laid and how much it needed to be leveled to get the water to run right, how this cow did with her calf, he always knew how everything should turn out. He was a problem solver for the land he tended, the county and people he served, and for the family he loved. He treated everyone he met with honesty and courtesy, no matter if they were running for President or if they worked in the field with him and my brothers. After you are in a war and come through something like he did, it does change you, it changes your perspective on what’s important. What was important to him was God, Honor, and Family, in that order. I was the last of the kids, my brothers are 15 and 17 years older than I am—sort of an oops baby.
I can remember my Momma saying, “Look, there are my three tall men.” We were riding her horse, I was behind her clinging to one of my Dad’s old belts around her waist, and my brothers and Dad rode up over the hilltop after rounding up the cattle. Daddy inspired you to be tall, he counted on his children to be honorable, to be noble in spirit, and above all to point the way to God by your behavior for those around you. We aren’t always up to his standards, but we know he will still have his arms open someday. We have huge shoes to fill. Thank you, Daddy, for being my hero.
Arthur Lee Goodin Sept 8, 1917 - August 2, 1991